Hey folks! It’s time for a new round of comics reviews and recommendations. Start the year off right with some brand new comics and get the skinny on the first crossover of the year. All hand selected by your friends on Team Phoenix. 

Reviews and Recommendations

February kicks off the first big crossover of the year, a brand new comic by the folks who brought you New Masters, and more! All recommendations by Sloane and Nick! If you see something you like, don’t forget to head over to our subscription update form and put yourself down for any new series, one shot or graphic novel that caught your eye.

Bronze Faces

Boom! Studios

By Shobo & Shof Coker (writers) and Alexandre Tefenkgi (artist)

The most impressive museum I’ve ever been to in my entire life is the British Museum. From the Rosetta Stone to Maoi Statues to the friezes from the Parthenon, few museums have that breadth of important cultural artifacts from across the history of the world. There’s a reason, of course. Many of the artifacts in the British Museum are essentially stolen – removed from the places they were found, often by force, without the consent of the people who lived there. Some of the most famous among these artifacts are the Benin Bronzes, taken from the Kingdom of Benin after its invasion by British troops in 1897, as a part of a dubiously justified expedition that led to the kingdom’s eventual annexation into Colonial Nigeria. There are modern day movements to repatriate those cultural relics to the places they came from, and the museum acknowledges them, making a big show of working with the governments of those countries and doing everything short of… well, actually returning the artifacts, of course. 

Bronze Faces is a story about what if someone decided to take those artifacts back by force. 

Series co-creator, Nigerian-born Shobo Coker describes the book by saying “What if we took our heritage back by any means necessary? …While jamming to afrobeat, preferably Fela, wearing a bronze leopard mask, flipping the bird, and wearing a stylish getaway outfit that you can see from space.” 

- Sloane 

Zatanna 

DC Comics

By Jamal Campbell (writer and artist)

Hot on the heels of one of Elise’s favorite series of 2024, Zatanna is back with a new 6 issue mini-series courtesy of Jamal Campbell. And I gotta tell ya - this book is GORGEOUS. I’ve had a chance to read the first issue in its entirety and it is absolutely beautiful. Jamal’s art is homage after homage to classic film posters with gorgeous spreads that drop you face first into the action. His prose lends itself to an action / adventure angle with a bit of that stage magician camp that I would expect for a contemporary magic comic book in the DCU. 

When the mysterious ghostly hollywood starlet known as the Lady White interrupts the rehearsals for her latest show, Zatanna must spring into action to rescue them. What does this apparition have in store for our heroine? Only one way to find out!

- Nick

Bug Wars

Image Comics

By Jason Aaron (writer) and Mahmud Asrar (artist)

Have you ever sat down and watched bugs and pictured them as tiny people fighting over resources and waging epic (if tiny scale) conflicts in your backyard? Well Slade Slaymaker finds out exactly what the backyard bugs are up to, when a mysterious relic shrinks him down and drops him smack in the middle of a raging war between factions of humanoid bugs.

Welcome to Bug Wars, a mini-series where Jason Aaron and Mahmud Asrar let loose with some silly goofy fun that looks like it was written for your inner child. It’s gonna be a short 6 issue mini-series that promises clashes of epic armies and powerful warriors…on a teeeeeny tiny little scale. Quoth Jason Aaron, “Think Honey I Shrunk the Kids meets Game of Thrones.” 

…that’s an image that’s in my head now. 

So I had to share it with you. You’re welcome.

- Nick

Godzilla Heist

IDW

By Van Jensen (writer) and Kelsey Ramsay (artist)

What if you knew that a natural disaster was coming, and you made a plan to rob the local bank and let the disaster cover your tracks. This is that premise, but with Godzilla. When protagonist Jai discovers that Godzilla responds to specific energy signals, he puts together a crew and sets out to pull off a high stakes heist under the cover of a kaiju attack. Perfect for the reader who loves the genre, and hey bonus - the mini-series will feature alt covers to homage some of the great heist films of the last couple of decades such as Point Break and Mission Impossible (and also Fast and the Furious for some reason?  IDK I’ve never seen the first film). 

What’s not to love?

- Nick

Crossover Alert: One World Under Doom

Marvel Comics

By Ryan North (writer) and R.B. Silva (artist)

Spinning out of last year’s summer blockbuster Blood Hunt, Doctor Doom became sorcerer supreme to save the world from the whole eternal darkness / vampire problem. Then, he promptly locked himself up behind the iron curtain that is Latveria. Welp, he’s back and worse then ever - commandeering every broadcasting platform on the planet to declare himself emperor of the world under a new United Latveria….and everyone is surprisingly okay with this? Well, world leaders anyways. Heroes not so much. 

So it’s giant superhero smackdown brawl time as the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and a whole lot more wade into the conflict in a big ole line-wide crossover. Here’s the following reading order we’ve been able to cobble together:

• Fantastic Four #28 (Prologue)

• One World Under Doom #1

• Doom Academy #1 (OWUD Mini-Series)

• Storm #5 (tie-In)

• Thunderbolts: Doomstrike #1 (OWUD Mini-Series)

• Weapon X-Men #1 (OWUD Mini-Series)

• X-Factor #7 (tie-in)

• Fantastic Four #29 (tie-in)

• Red Hulk #1

• Doctor Strange of Asgard #1

• Iron Man #6 (tie-in)

• One World Under Doom #2

• Fantastic Four #30 (tie-In)

• Doom Academy #2 (OWUD Mini-Series)

• Doom’s Division #1 (OWUD Mini-Series)

• Red Hulk #2

This is all we’ve got so far (this goes as far as March), and more to come as the series moves into April. As always with any big crossover - pick your battles and consider that not all comic tie-ins need be read in order to get the whole story. If you read the prologue and the first issue and say “hmm, I don’t know if I want to get all the details here,” then maybe just read the main series and one or two of the side-series. That’s a 100% valid approach to the wonderful world of comics too.

- Nick

And that's it for our February look aheads! Next month's look aheads should be up in just a few weeks for our March Look Aheads. Thanks for reading, and if you saw something you wanted to add to your pull (or want to start a subscription for the book), use our handy little subscription update form and submit that request! We'll get right on that.